The meaning of si in expressions with "si no"

Question

I heard a joke recently which contained a piece of grammar that I have seen several times, but don't fully understand. Here's the joke.

? Cariño, ¿te acuerdas lo felices que éramos hace quince años?
? Pero si no nos conocíamos.
? Por eso, cariño, por eso.

The meaning of the joke is obvious, but In the second line, I don't know what the si means, or if it is supposed to be sí (yes) as an emphasizer. Either way, I'm unfamiliar with this grammatical construction.

Answer 1

Pero si no nos conocíamos - but if not we used to know .

Answer 2

Sorry, but that makes no sense to me.

The English translation of the second line should be something like "But we didn't [even] know each other [15 years ago]." I'm just asking what grammatical function the si performs in the sentence.

Answer 3

Here is another example I remember.

Deja de llorar, chico, si no pasa nada.

In this case, I guess the si is the same as que.

Answer 4

Oh, I thought you wanted the translation of the second line. Truly, I'm not sure about the function within that joke. It seems (as you say) that it would make more sense if the 'si' was not there. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Answer 5

Thanks, SLP2008.

So, I guess a similar wording would be "Pero, ni nos conocíamos." That wording sounds less natural to me, though, than the "si no" construction, even though I'm not that familiar with the latter. I just see and hear it a lot.

I agree that the word cannot be translated literally by itself. I hope a native speaker will give me his or her take on this (assuming SLP2008 is not a native Spanish speaker). I think the most natural English translation here is "We didn't even know each other" or "We hadn't even met yet."

BTW, when the second line of the joke is read, is there a slight pause after si, or is si stressed, or is "si no nos" just run together'

Answer 6

the word si without an accent means if no nos conocíamos we didn't used to know eachother

Answer 7

I forgot to put the meaning of the word sino has several meanings as well

fate,destiny

of conjunction but

Answer 8

Thanks very much for your input. But if it is said as "perosinó," that sounds like "but if not" to me, which is not the intended meaning in this context. Furthermore, pausing after the "no" makes the verb phrase "nos conocíamos" sound positive, rather than its intended negative. That is, if the stress and timing are something like "perosinó nosconocíamos," it sounds like "but if not, we knew each other."

I asked a costariquense friend who teachers Spanish about this last night, and she said that she can't really explain the function of the word, but that it stresses the concept, as SLP2008 said above.

Answer 9

Good idea! Maybe we should record ourselves saying things, upload it to Youtube, and post a link.

I have asked a couple of native speakers to say this phrase, and to my ear the timing sounds like "perosi nonosconocíamos," with only the briefest of pauses between the si and the no.

This is probably one of those aspects of Spanish that I will never truly master enough to use fluently myself, but at least I think I understand it passively now.

Thanks again.

Answer 10

This joke was posted by Cherry a short while back and she may well have more information. To me ? Pero si no nos conocíamos - the si is just positively confirming the negative phrase that we didn'y know each other then, if that makes sense'

Answer 11

James, what movie is the swordsman from that you have as your picture? I have been trying to find the name of a movie about a Japanese swordsman that was made in the 70's. I saw the movie when I was a teenager. This guys fought an army and won, but he died at the end of the movie. I have been trying to find this movie for years to put into my Ku-Fung movie collection. I don't know the name of the movie. I'm very curious about your picture. This might be a chance for me to find the movie.

Answer 12

The actor is Toshiro Mifune, and the movie is Yojimbo, made in 1961 by Akira Kurosawa. Many consider it Kurosawa's masterpiece.

I'm a Japanese translator, and used to live in Japan, hence the connection to my avatar.

Answer 13

Hopefully, this is the movie. The one I saw was excellence. I saw it in 1973. The actor was a heavy-set guy and very fast. I'll check it out on line-on. I figured you might be able to answer my qestion. Thank you very much, James.

Answer 14

sino - used inthis context means 'rather'

pero sino means 'but rather' (but instead..)

sino is used when saying 'not ___|_, BUT \___|__' , where the but can be replaced by the word 'rather'

so 'sino' means rather...(and it's used as one word, no si no. but sino)

Answer 15

The function of 'si' in expressions with 'si no', that is the topic.

In expressions with 'si no' , 'sino' is one word, and the meaning is as i have given above.

Unless i'm going completely mad, i'm sure this is what the original poster was asking to be clarified...yes, they wanted to know what the 'si' meant, but what i'm trying to point out is that , because it's followed with 'no' , it becomes the word 'sino' , which means 'rather' or 'but instead'.